


Ashes for My History

by Taste_is_Sweet



Series: Soldiers of Fire and Shadows [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Claire Temple Deserves Better, Claire Temple is So Done, Claire Temple is a Saint, Crossover, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Matt Murdock, Hydra are dicks, Illya Kuryakin Needs a Hug, Reports of Bucky Barnes' Death are Greatly Exaggerated, so does Claire, the russian crossover no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 00:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10605057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet
Summary: Illya is standing with his arms crossed and his back against the wall. His entire concentration seems to be focused exclusively on Matt, but he turns his head immediately when she comes in."Is this penance?" Claire asks him. "To make up for what you think you did?"Illya doesn't even blink at her. "No," he says simply. "There is nothing that will make up for what I did. But I will never let anyone hurt my brothers again.""It wasn't your fault," she says.He shifts his attention back to Matt, pointedly looking away.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [Brumeier](https://goo.gl/WWFEbm) for the super-speedy beta and enthusiasm. :D
> 
> The title comes from [Birds with Broken Wings](https://youtu.be/kfzy08FSdS4) by Ben Caplan.
> 
> Bucky Barnes is NOT DEAD. He is just presumed dead in this AU.

It's three o'clock in the fucking morning, and she just finished stitching Matt up five minutes ago. Claire was about to change out of her bloodstained clothes and maybe, God forbid, sit down. So naturally someone starts pounding on the fucking apartment door.

Matt is dead to the world, which isn't surprising considering the state he was in when he called her. She has no idea what the hell really happened to him, but as far as she can tell someone drugged him to the gills then threw him off a roof. He has two broken ribs, along with the fun and exciting gashes she spent half the night dealing with, but it's the deep bruise on his sternum that's really terrifying. At some point between getting clobbered and making incoherent phone calls, Matt's heart stopped. He was so profoundly asleep when she found him she thought he'd died, only to realize later that he actually had. He spent God only knew how long with some stranger keeping his heart beating, and Claire had no fucking clue until she took off his shirt.

She's grateful he made it to her apartment alive. Of course, that leaves the interesting question of who the fuck is knocking on the door. Maybe it's someone looking for her mother, since Claire's been living with her since she lost her job. But her mom's working the late shift at the restaurant, and she doesn't have crazy friends. And who the hell would be looking for her mother at three in the morning anyway?

No one, that's who. Plenty of people might be looking for _Claire_ at all fucking hours, but she can count the ones who have this address on one hand with fingers to spare, and one of them is sleeping off his latest disaster in her bed, and the other's in prison.

Matt would've told her if Luke busted out again or was set free. Which leaves a grand total of who the fuck is this and what the hell do they want?

Claire bought a nice, sturdy aluminum baseball bat after the Russians nabbed her. She keeps it by the front door for situations like this. She hasn't had to use it yet. She doesn't want to use it now, but it's three in the morning and she's tired and worried about Matt and more than prepared to pound some asshole's head in.

She looks through the peephole, but all she can see is a black turtleneck and lined leather jacket. "Who's there?" She makes her voice loud and angry, mostly 'cause she is. She hefts the bat, ready to swing at whatever body part she sees first if they break the door down.

The knocking stops. "Claire Temple?" It's a male voice with a Russian accent and for a second her stomach drops like frozen lead, thinking of garages and fear and pain. Then she recognizes the voice and drops the bat to unlock the door and yank it open.

"Illya?"

He stumbles in, pale and trembling like every textbook description of shock she's ever read. She does a quick catalog with her eyes as she relocks the door, but his turtleneck and winter jacket are too dark to show blood and there's nothing soaking through his jeans. He's holding a rolled magazine in his hand, crumpled from the pressure of his fingers. He's shaking so badly the pages rattle.

"Illya? What is it? What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

He shakes his head numbly, which only screams that he really, really is. He looks worse than when they met, even if he's not bleeding: scared and vulnerable and almost as pale as Matt when she found him tonight. His eyes are red and glimmering with tears, but they go wide and concerned when he sees her shirt. "Are you all right?"

Oh, fuck me, she thinks. It's sweet of him to worry, but the last thing she needs right now is to mollify a damn super soldier when he's already freaked out. "Yes. Yes, I'm fine," she says quickly. "This isn't my blood." He looks like he can't buy that, so she stands back and spreads her arms. "I'm fine. Totally fine, see? I'm not going to take off my shirt to prove it, but believe me, if this was my blood I wouldn't be standing here." 

"That is lot of blood," Illya says.

She mentally groans in frustration but only allows herself a slow blink to express it, because under his fear for her Illya looks like he's hanging on to his control by the skin of his teeth, and she's not going to make things harder for him. "Yes it is," she says calmly. "You remember I'm a nurse, right?"

He nods. "Metro-General."

"Yeah, that's right." She doesn't bother saying she doesn't work there anymore. "And do you also remember that I know other people like you?" She waits for another nod. "Well, this was one of them."

Illya blinks. "Oh. I am sorry." She doesn't know if he's apologizing for interrupting or if he's just being sympathetic, but then he glances at the magazine in his hand and backs up a step so that he's practically grazing the closed door. "It's all right," he says, looking away. "It's not important. My apologies—"

She would actually love to not have to deal with this, but she can't stand the thought of him leaving in the state he's in. He's hurting badly, for all that she can't see any wounds. "Hey. Illya. Illya! Hey!" Claire grips his arms, gives him a little shake though it feels like trying to jostle a mountain. At least it gets his attention. "You came here because you needed help. So let me help."

He swallows, then holds out the magazine for her. "Is this true?"

Claire unrolls it. She's both shocked and completely unsurprised to see the beautiful portrait of Bucky Barnes. "Is what true? You mean, what is says about Sergeant Barnes in here?" 

He nods. "Please. Is it true?"

She wants to lie, because he already looks like hell. But she actually read that special edition of _Time Magazine_ after finding a bleeding Russian in her hospital's storage room; she's seen fewer citations in technical papers.

It's definitely the truth, and he deserves the truth more than he needs a short-lived kindness. Still. She takes his wrist, which feels like grabbing a banister. "Come and sit down."

He yanks his hand back, because every single fucking super type she's ever met has issues with people being kind to them. "Just tell me."

She takes a breath. "Yeah." She nods and taps the magazine. "At least, _Time_ says it's true, and they're reputable. And Captain America says it's true, and they knew each other. And they were fighting when Barnes died. I'm sorry," she says, because he looks like she just gutted him.

"Vanya," Illya whispers, then he says something in Russian that's eloquent with desolation even if she can't understand it. He clenches his big, trembling hands and there's a blood-red darkness behind his sky-blue eyes that makes her think about reaching for the bat again. She hates even considering it, but the night they met Illya had ripped apart a steel cylinder and bashed his way through a concrete wall. The worst thing he did was bleed on her, but he looks more devastated now than he did then. She has no idea what he might do.

"Illya," she says, sharply enough that he looks at her instead of whatever horrible thing's unspooling in his head. "Illya, I know you're hurting, but you need to control yourself. Can you breathe with me?"

He shakes his head mutely, but then he blinks a couple times and the rage fades from his eyes like smoke from a flame. He grits his teeth, but the tears leak out of his eyes anyway, uncontrollable. He drops to his knees, like his legs won't hold him, then forward onto his forearms, turtling up like a very small, very overwhelmed child.

She remembers the way he wept after she told him everyone he cared about was dead: like each breath was ripping out his soul with it. This is worse. He keeps speaking in Russian between his sobs, spitting the words through his teeth like accusations.

She kneels next to him, rubbing his back and the nape of his neck. "You're going to be okay, all right? You'll get through this. I promise, you'll be okay."

He just shakes his head. "No. My fault. I killed him. It was me. I killed him!"

Claire has no idea if that's guilt or Hydra's electroshock mnemonic techniques, but there's no question that Bucky Barnes' cause of death was exploding airship, not the distraught man on her floor. "You didn't kill him, Illya. You were in that cylinder, remember? You weren't there."

"No." Illya shakes his head again, but he pushes himself back to his knees, which is at least less heartbreakingly awful. His eyes are puffy and still running with tears and he needs to wipe his nose. She wordlessly gets up and brings him the tissue box from the coffee table. "You don't understand." He swallows heavily, then cleans his face and takes a deep, shuddering breath. "He got away. He escaped. He…he came to rescue me. But I thought…" He starts crying again. "I thought he was sick! I didn't know. I didn't know that what he told me was real. That he was remembering. So I…" The sound he makes is like a laugh that went through a meat grinder. "I gave him back. I made him go back. And now he's dead." He puts his hand over his eyes, shoulders shaking as he gives in to more tears. She's sure he has a lifetime's worth of them.

"Shhh. Shhh. You're okay. You're not alone. I've got you. I'm right here." She pulls him to her and hugs him, mostly around his neck and head because he's so ridiculously tall. His hands rest so lightly on her back that she can barely feel them. She'd forgotten how gentle he is, but he's like Luke: all that strength and power as tightly leashed as a trained bear. "You didn't know, Illya. You were trying to help him. You thought you were helping him."

" _I know._ I know I did!" He jerks away from her, then immediately looks contrite when she rears back in alarm. "I'm sorry," he says quickly. "But it doesn't matter, what I thought. He's still dead. He's dead because of what I did. I killed him."

"Hydra killed him," Claire says. "They're the ones who held him prisoner and fucked with his head. He would've never been in that helicarrier if Hydra hadn't put him there, right? Come on, Illya. Don't do this." She takes his face in her hands and physically turns his head so their eyes meet. "Hydra did this. Not you. This is not your fault."

He just looks away again, over her shoulder, and then rockets to his feet so fast his back collides with the door. The thud is epic, but at least the thick wood doesn't crack. Claire jumps to her feet in concern then looks at what Illya's gaping at.

Matt is standing at the entrance to her living room in nothing but his bandages and Daredevil leggings, leaning heavily on the wall and looking like he's staying upright thanks to stubbornness and idiocy. He's got his head canted in that way of his when he's doing his world on fire thing, but the way he keeps blinking makes her think it's not working. "Claire?" he sounds scared. If he can't use his powers it must be killing him. "Who's with you?"

"He's a friend. It's all right, Matt. He's a friend. He came here for help, like you did." She puts her hand on Illya's cinderblock of a chest, in case he thinks Matt's a threat. She hasn't a hope in hell of stopping either of them if they decide to go for each other, but when she glances up at Illya's face he doesn't look threatened; he looks like his world's caved in so far it's turned inside out.

" _Matvey?_ " he breathes. 

"What? You know him?" Claire looks at Matt, but he hasn't moved other than shutting his eyes. Claire's sure he's doing it to concentrate, until he starts keeling over and she realizes he's about to pass out.

"Oh, no. Matt!" She runs for him, but Illya just takes a single long jump over the fucking coffee table and the couch behind it and catches Matt as he falls.

He sweeps Matt into his arms, lifting him as easily as a toddler. "Where?"

"Bedroom." Claire gestures at the room Matt just teetered out of. "Wait! Hang on." She runs in and kicks the rest of Matt's Daredevil outfit under the bed, then yanks the bunched covers out of the way to make more room. "Okay, you can bring him now."

Illya brings Matt to the bed and puts him down as gently as he touched her before. She's seen his strength, but his vulnerability just now, coupled with the startling gentleness, makes it just about impossible to imagine him as the kind of ruthless, remorseless killer the Winter Soldier was supposed to be.

Then again, the Winter Soldier was James Buchanan Barnes, by all accounts another gentle man.

Claire snaps on a pair of nitrile gloves, then automatically goes to check the reactivity of Matt's pupils before remembering that there's no point. But his pulse and breathing are normal, and he hasn't managed to rip any of the stitches she spent three hours of her life putting in. There's no sign of internal bleeding either, or any infection. Sometimes she thinks Matt is the luckiest self-sacrificing idiot on the planet.

Illya watches everything with the kind of silent, attentive concern she'd normally associate with close family. "Why is he like this?" he demands, as if she's the one responsible for Matt laying in her apartment unconscious and bleeding. "He should be in hospital." The pads of his fingers ghost over Matt's bruised chest, as if he can feel the cracks in the bone. "His heart stopped. He should not be here."

"You're right," Claire tells him. "But since he's prone to punching his friends out for even suggesting it, we're not calling an ambulance unless he starts circling the drain. Which he won't," she adds immediately, because Illya goes white like she means it. "I know it looks bad, but he's doing all right. See?" She squeezes the base of Matt's thumbnail between her thumb and forefinger, making sure it hurts. Matt yanks his hand away. "That's a textbook perfect reaction to a pain stimulus, which means he's going to be fine." She's not 100% sure of that, considering she has no idea what the hell laid him out like this, but she's very good at spinning almosts into absolutes when necessary. No sense borrowing trouble when the world hands you enough on its own. "As for why he's like this…." She spreads her hands. "Not a clue. He's definitely been drugged, but someone could've slipped him a roofie at a bar." She knows how unlikely that is with a guy who could smell a Russian thug's cologne half a building away, but Illya doesn't know that. And right now it's as good an explanation as any until Matt wakes the hell up and tells her what actually happened.

"What is 'roofie'?"

"A narcotic that's dissolved in someone's drink to—"

"Sedate them," Illya finishes, nodding. "I know what they are, but I did not know that word." He frowns at Matt. "This is not just sedative. He does not look all right."

"He's _doing_ all right. I didn't say he _looked_ it." She straightens and arches her back. Her mom is going to have a fit when she comes home and finds Daredevil unconscious in her daughter's bed. Fuck her life, seriously. Claire scoops her hair off her neck and pulls all of it over her shoulder. God, she's tired. "Are you okay?" she asks Illya.

He barely glances at her, but he's still wiping his eyes. "I suppose that's his blood on your shirt," he says.

"Yup." Claire sighs. Looks like the big Russian's decided to pretend his breakdown never happened. What a surprise. "I've had a lot of his blood on my shirts. That's why I know he's going to be all right. I've seen him recover from a hell of a lot worse than this."

Illya stares at her. "Worse than _this?_ " He gestures roughly at the evidence of CPR. “Why? Why is he—" He stops abruptly, his eyes widening. He cups Matt's chin, using his grip to carefully turn his head so it's easier to see Matt's face. "Matvey," he whispers. "Matvey. Matya." He mutters something in Russian, eyes distant like he's chasing a memory, then he lets go of Matt to look at Claire. "Is he blind? Please, tell me. Is he blind?" he repeats, when she's still trying to figure out what she should even tell him.

What decides her is how desperate Illya looks, as if his life hinges on the answer. "Yes. Yes, he's blind. How did you even know that?"

"Lucky guess," Illya says faintly. His eyes are fixed on Matt's face again. "I thought he was dead, like the others." He pushes Matt's sweat-tangled hair off his forehead as softly as a parent. "That I was the only one left. This…" He swallows and his jaw works, muscles bunching at the hinge. His fingers twitch before he pulls his hands away to make tight fists of them at his sides. When he lifts his head there are unshed tears in his eyes. It makes the ethereal blue look like drift glass. "I was supposed to kill him."

" _What?_ What the fuck?" The nearest weapon is the bat, which she left in the living room. Otherwise there's the bandage shears, which are in the kit on the bed. They're also blunt specifically not to cut anyone. She grabs them anyway. "If you hurt him I will kill you," she snarls. "Step the fuck off. Now."

Illya blinks at her, then takes two deliberate steps back with his hands raised. "I swear on my life I will not hurt him," he says. She knows he could swat her aside like a fly, but he sounds completely honest.

Claire relaxes, puts the shears back. "Good." Her hands are shaking so she crosses her arms. She is way too tired for this shit. "Now, what the fuck are you talking about, killing Matt? How do you even know him?"

Illya lowers his hands but he doesn't go any nearer to the bed. Matt sighs in his sleep, murmurs something that may or may not be words. "You know I was…." He grimaces. "Hydra owned me. Made me. I did what they said."

"Yeah, I know." Claire drops her arms as well, makes her voice kind. "But what does that have to do with Matt?"

Illya licks his lips. "He is like me. A Summer Soldier."

Claire stares at him. "That's bullshit."

"Claire," Illya says, and he sounds almost as tired as she feels, "there is devil costume under your bed. Either it is yours, or it is his. I am almost certain it belongs to him. So, can you tell me how he is Daredevil if he is blind, if Hydra did nothing?"

"It's not Hydra. It can't be. They weren't there." She doesn't know why she's so scared, but her heart is going _thud_ in her chest as badly as it did a second ago when she thought Illya would try to kill him. "It was the toxic waste that got in his eyes."

"Maybe that is what he told you. Maybe he even thinks that is what happened to him. But that is not true." Illya puts his hands in his jacket pockets, riveted on Matt's quiet breathing. "He is Summer Soldier. That is what they called the new ones, the children they gave the serum." His smile is one of the saddest she's ever seen. "The first ones, they stole. Like me. There were six of us, all taken from different families. My brothers," he adds softly. "Vanya—" He stops, wincing like the name hurts. "Bucky was the Winter Soldier. He…." Illya closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. "He was my brother. We were all brothers. But, Vanya, he was only mine." He takes another couple swipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand. "And then I betrayed him."

"You thought you were helping him," Claire says. 

"It does not matter. He is dead." Illya swallows, then grimaces like he's forcing away his grief. He goes back to the bed then checks the pulse at Matt's wrist. "There were other boys, later. Three, maybe four. Some parents knew, some did not. His did not."

"Fuck me," Claire says, running her fingers through her hair. "Does _Matt_ know?" He sure as hell never mentioned it.

Illya shakes his head. "That is why they wanted me to kill him. Matya did not get complete serum. His father took him home too soon. He was useless. Just blind boy always in pain. How can you train a child like that?"

"Took him too soon?" Claire parrots, bewildered. "When? As a baby?"

"After accident," Illya says. "The other ones, they were babies. But with Matya…" His smile twists. "Young, hero boy is in hospital. He is blind and sick and his father cannot pay. Hydra is very good at finding these opportunities."

"Oh, my God." Claire goes to stand next to Illya, looking at Matt as if, now that she knows his true history, she'd be able to see it on his skin. He looks pale and bruised and helpless and exactly the same. "So they gave him the serum at the hospital."

"Yes. But he left too soon. He had one dose, not three. He can't see. Noise makes him scream in pain. Boy is failure. So Hydra sent me to kill him."

Claire puts her hand over her mouth. It's sinking in, just how close Matt must have come to dying. It's like the last twenty years are borrowed time. "Why you?"

Illya shrugs. "I was available."

It's obvious there's more to it than that, but it's also obvious there's no point in asking. "Why didn't you kill him?"

Illya shrugs again. "He is _bratik_. Little brother. And child. I do not hurt children."

 _I do not hurt children._ He makes it sound like a casual fact, but she remembers how she found him: cold, bleeding, confused, wounded and terrified. Metro-General's parking garage was renovated in the mid-90s. She can only imagine what his refusal cost him. "Is that why they froze you?"

"Yes," Illya says.

"I'm sorry."

He won't look at her. "It was a long time ago."

"Does that make it better?"

"No."

His fists are stuffed in his pockets, but when she pulls on his nearer arm to take his hand, he lets her. "He's alive because of you."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Illya's eyes shift to the rise of Matt's chest every time he breathes. "He _should_ be dead. I did not comply, but there were others who would. Hydra does not like their mistakes to go free."

That sounds unpleasantly personal. "That doesn't make sense. Why is he alive, then?"

"I don't know." Illya stacks his hands and puts them over the bruise on Matt's chest, like he's trying to gauge the size of the hands that made it. "He should have died as child. He should have died now. Someone saved him."

"Okay, great." Claire rubs her forehead. "Hydra's after him, apparently. But they're not trying to kill him, even though you were supposed to kill him twenty years ago. Only, if they're trying to capture him, why the hell did they drug him with something strong enough to stop his heart?" She takes a breath that feels like lead seeping into her bones. "Fuck, I'm way too tired for this. Why the hell does this shit only ever happen in the middle of the night?"

"Go to sleep," Illya says, as if that's the problem.

"Well, I'd _like_ to," she says with zero patience, "but there's a vigilante passed out in my bed. And I need to be awake in case he stops breathing again."

"No, you don't. I will be awake in case he stops breathing. You can sleep."

He sounds so confident about it, that she's tempted, she really is. And it's not like she's afraid of him, either for Matt or herself. It's just that Matt is defenseless right now, and she doesn't trust anyone else to keep him alive.

"I promise, if something happens I will wake you," Illya says, as if he knows exactly what's going through her mind. "I will keep you both safe while you sleep, I swear it."

It feels like he's just given her a sacred vow, and there's something so hopeful in his expression that it makes her throat a little tight. He wants her to trust him, he wants her permission to keep them safe.

"You swear that if Matt does anything besides sleep that you'll wake me up?" she says, using her _don't fuck with your nurse_ voice, just to be sure.

He nods solemnly. "I swear it on my life."

"Well, good. Okay." She's so wiped that for a second she just stands there, doesn't know what to do. "I'm going to the living room," she decides finally. She walks past him to her closet and grabs the closest tee-shirt and hoodie. "I'm going to change, then I'm going to crash on the couch. Please don't scare my mother if she comes home before I wake up."

That, finally, gets her one of his beautiful smiles. She's sure it's fake, but he pulls it off so well she can't help but grin back anyway. "Your mother will love me. I am very charming."

Claire doesn't doubt that at all. "Don't give her ideas." She pats his arm. "Thanks, Illya."

"My pleasure, Claire."

She's in the hallway when something about the situation hits her and she stops dead, then groans and kind of wants to beat her head against the wall.

Claire goes back to the bedroom. Illya is standing with his arms crossed and his back against the wall. His entire concentration seems to be focused exclusively on Matt, but he turns his head immediately when she comes in.

He hasn't even taken off his jacket, for fuck's sake, which probably shouldn't make her angry. "Is this penance? Is that why you're standing guard like this? To make up for what you think you did?"

Illya doesn't even blink at her. "No," he says simply. "There is nothing that will make up for what I did. But I will never let anyone hurt my brothers again."

"It wasn't your fault," she says.

He shifts his attention back to Matt, pointedly looking away. "Go to sleep, Claire."

She stays there a moment, wishing there was something she could say that would make him believe her. But the night's almost over and she's exhausted, and sick to the teeth of trying to talk to men too stubborn in their self-hatred to listen.

So she changes into the clean shirts and lays down on the couch, pretending she'll be able to sleep. And instead she listens for Illya coming to wake her, and wonders why the good people of the world almost never think they're righteous, while the ones like Fisk, Dillard and Pierce always do.

END

**Author's Note:**

> This story fills the **Crucifixion** square of my [Hurt/Comfort Bingo](http://hc-bingo.livejournal.com/) [Card](http://taste-is-sweet.livejournal.com/99391.html).
> 
> [Tumblr Tumblr Tumblr Tumblr](http://taste-is-sweet.tumblr.com/). (And if you enjoy Alternate Universes, come check out [WhatIfAU](https://whatifau.tumblr.com/)!)


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